This is the book that I recently read and reviewed. It is a lovely book and impressive in that it is a true story.
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My Review of Phil Nork’s Misguided Sensitivity
5.0 out of 5 stars A Ballad of Love and Roses, April 6, 2013
By
Michael Beyer (Texas, USA)
This review is from: Misguided Sensitivity (Paperback)
A yellow rose for Lisa whom he met at the bowling alley and grew up with. Red and white roses for Mary, the first girl he thought he might be falling in love with. A yellow rose for Joyce who was a lover of women but relied heavily on Phil. And of course a red rose for Star, the one who… Well, to be honest, you need to let him be the one to tell you this ballad of beauty, women you could talk to and be friends with, and the meaning behind a gift of roses. In his book Misguided Sensitivity, Phil Nork takes you through a variety of very touching, sensitive, and warmly portrayed women that helped to shape his life as a man. From his divorced mother and nurturing grandmother, to the first date, and the first love, he takes us on a journey of growth, development as a person, and deepening of understanding across the broad and varied landscape of real-life relationships.
The book is very frank and open, giving us insight into the mind of a sensitive man who cares more about the woman than he does himself. He shares with us the life lessons he learned along the way, listing them for us in a slowly built set of rules for living. You need to read it for yourself.
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A Writer-friend reviewed my book…
Come read my review of Catch a Falling Star by Michael Beyer It is geared toward the younger reader (middle-school and up) but I enjoyed it too
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Wild Ride of the Space Cowboys (Short short story)
Gyro was no ordinary Nebulon. Nebulons, known to many in the Imperium as “Space Smurfs” for reasons long forgotten, were the child-like blue people who inhabited deep space in their living starships. Many thought the blue skin, yellow hair, and red apple cheeks showed evidence they were not just humanoids, but human space travelers mutated by the exotic radiations of the nebulae where Earthers and other humans had first discovered them. Gyro had the red cheeks, the blue skin, and the bright yellow hair, but he also had qualities that were extremely rare in Nebulons. For one thing he was a Psion, a being with the right brain mutation to perform powerful brain functions that seemed like magic to the ordinary space traveler. His own special psionic ability was even rarer than the usual Psion. He could not only use telepathy, but use the power of his “inner eye” to see and alter the molecular structure and overall organization in any finite piece of matter. In other words, he could change lead into gold with the power of his mind alone. To Gyro it was just a matter of pushing the funny little atomic balls into new configurations in the creative imaginings of his “inner eye”.
Being a Psion inside the borders of the Galactic Imperium, the so-called “Thousand Worlds”, was a dangerous enterprise. The Imperials were so afraid of psionic powers and what they believed they could do, that having psionic power brought an immediate death sentence. That was the reason that when Gyro and his family, and the boy named Billy Iowa, also a Psion, had to leave the Pan Galactican Union, they had journeyed to the distant world of Gaijin to find the master of Psionics, the White Spider, Ged Aero. Sensei Ged Aero had taken in both boys, given them a home, and taught them how to master the powers of the “inner eye”.
So that was the reason that Gyro now sat on the planet Cornucopia beside a huge dead bug and pondered the possibilities of escape for himself and Billy. Master Aero and his Little Mutant Space Ninjas had come as explorers to the planet, and run afoul of the living plants, the Throckpods who inhabited it. As Gyro and Billy had been heading back to base camp, they were attacked by a large group of the ugly sentient flowers and their pet gargantuan dragonfly. Billy, being a good student of Ged’s Martial Arts training, delivered a jump-kick to the chitinous face plate of the dragonfly that put a hole in it, driving his foot right into the thing’s syrupy brain tissue. It dropped dead next to them as Throckpods moved menacingly around them in a huge circle of weed.
“We are totally cut off,” said Billy. “And I think they mean to kill us.”
“They’re flowers! Flowers can’t eat people… can they?” asked Gyro nervously.
“They are intelligent flowers. How can you know what they eat and don’t eat?” asked Billy in return. His Dakota Sioux features scrunched up into a frown. “I am at the height of my power. Let them come! In a sacred manner I resist them until my very last breath! It is a good day to die!”
Gyro eyes got wider. It was a very Indian sort of thing for Billy to say, but Gyro didn’t really want to hear it.
“You give me a few minutes to think,” said Gyro, “and I will find a way out of this mess.”
Billy resolutely turned to frown at the approaching grove of ugly flowers.
Gyro looked all around, and finally settled on the dragonfly. In some ways, the huge insect already resembled an anti-grav cycle. It wouldn’t take very much manipulation to… Gyro’s imagination started turning chitin into glass-steel. The dragonfly’s bowels were easy to shape into a small fusion powered engine. The blood only had to be separated to get the hydrogen necessary for fuel. With a few pops and crackles and one big POOM, they had a working grav cycle.
As Throckpods started throwing thorns, and Billy swatted them out of the air with Wushu defensive strikes, Gyro revved the engine and pulled Billy onto the upholstered seat behind him.
“Time to bug out!” said Gyro with a huge blue grin. The grav cycle immediately and silently lifted into the air on anti-grav repulsor lifts. Then, with a roar, they zoomed skyward, not only out of the reach of Throckpods and thorns, but also out of reach from the devilish dragonflies that were swarming towards them from somewhere in the eastern sky.
“I guess it’s a good thing you can change stuff like that,” said Billy, holding tightly onto his Texas sombrero, “but if you had never made that stink-language translator, maybe we would’ve never got into this mess.”
“I don’t think the translator is the big problem,” said Gyro. “These flowers seem to have an agenda that doesn’t include looking pretty and smelling nice. I think they don’t like us as plant-eaters and potential invaders. After all, this is their world.”
“Okay,” said Billy. “Get us back to camp and Master Aero, and I’m all for leaving this dirtball to the plants!”
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First Novels and Hard Lessons Learned
My first published book was a Science Fiction novel called Aeroquest. It was a story that came about because as a young teacher I liked to play pencil and paper role-playing games with kids. It started with Dungeons and Dragons in 1981, but because I was in South Texas at the time, Baptist and fundamentalist Texas, I had to change away from any game associated with dragons and demons. I turned instead to the RPG called Traveller, a space game inspired by Star Wars and other Sci-Fi of the time. Most of the characters in the book, especially the Mutant Ninja Space Babies, were actually the kids I played the games with. They are characters that were created by them and given life by me.
So, I sent this book to a new publishing company in 2007 called Publish America. They seemed excited to publish my work. They paid me an advance of one dollar. They whipped me through a publishing process whereby I had to do all my own editing, proofreading, and supervising. They provided no aid with anything. They only tried to sell the book (for a grossly inflated price) to my friends and relatives. Through this whole process, I made a total of twelve dollars. Well, that didn’t seem like such a bad deal, except for the way mistakes were created in my story that were not there before. They copyrighted my work and told me that they owned the rights for the next seven years. I was originally supposed to include illustrations like I posted here, but decided to hang on to those when it became clear that I might lose ownership of them. So, all in all, I got two free copies of the book, a chance to annoy all my friends and relatives, and twelve dollars cash. That in exchange for two years’ work.
Aeroquest is the story of the Aero brothers, Ged and Ham. They start out as hunters, travelling space in a safari ship that belongs to Ham Aero. The third member of their crew is the super-goofy engineer, pirate, and fool named Trav Dalgoda. They elude pirates, conquer a couple of planets, make enemies of the entire Imperium, and Ged becomes the teacher of a ninja school on one of the planets they conquer, the planet Gaijin. I like this story. It’s full of ridiculous and off-the-wall humor, adventure, and some of the weirdest characters I could possibly put together. But, truth be told, it is not very good. I did a much better job on my second novel.
It was a learning experience. I learned that you do need to work with an editor to help you craft and polish the work. You do need to work with publicists and social media experts to promote the book and sell it. None of what I really needed to be an author rather than just a writer came through the PA experience. I didn’t get soaked for a lot of bucks, but they cheated me never-the-less. In another year I can have the novel rights back and I can try again with that story and related tales. I got cheated, but I learned valuable lessons that I hope will serve me well as I continue to destroy my own life with the desire to be a story-teller.
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Flash Gordon is My Hero!
I have to say, there are few things that stimulate my imagination more than Science Fiction. I was raised on it. I read Brick Bradford daily in the funny pages for most of the sixties. I loved anything and everything I could bet my hands on about Flash Gordon and Buck Rodgers. I loved the Sci-Fi behind Spiderman and the Avengers. And Star Trek! My Dad didn’t let me watch either Star Trek or Lost in Space because it had monsters in it and would give me nightmares. In spite of his loving restrictions that strangled me weekly, I saw those shows quite a lot. Every episode of Star Trek in syndication during the 70’s! And I got hold of a book in full color of Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon from the Sunday funnies of the 40’s. Play in the sixties was always about exploring alien worlds, fighting alien monsters and menaces, and battling Ming the Merciless and the forces of Darkness.
My friend Marco the Methodist Minister’s Son would always take the role of Prince Barin. We both secretly loved the beautiful Alicia Stewart, so she became Dale Arden or Princess Azura, even though she was never actually there. Dickie Tyler, the local bad boy, was always drafted to play Vultan, leader of the Hawkmen, and when we could get fat, old Tiger Bates to play along, he was always Prince Thun of the Lionmen. The funny thing that you may have already noticed is that we never had any badguys. We didn’t fight each other as we Flashatized constantly through our little rural Iowa town. We would explore and conquer the alien realms in the weedy ditches along the Rock Island railroad tracks. Or we would establish a beachhead on the jungle planet of Sumpter Park woods, leading to an inevitable war of conquest against the dried ragweed Dragonmen of Mongo. Once we collected alien spawn from the planet of the Rockmen, though they looked suspiciously like tadpoles from the snail pond down by the railroad underpass. We tended to work together when we played Flash Gordon games. It was different when we were World War Two soldiers or comic book heroes and villains. Dickie made a great Green Goblin and Sheriff of Nottingham. He had a chilling evil laugh. But we were all on the same side in space.
I guess that’s why I always preferred the Sci-Fi games. I got to be Flash Gordon because I could get the guys all working together. Play was about story-telling for me, and I could enthrall them with what my mind’s eye saw. Besides, they wouldn’t let me be Robin Hood or Spiderman. I wasn’t the biggest and toughest kid in the group. Now, as I work on my Science Fiction novel, I remember my Sci-Fi childhood fondly and try to capture some of the flavor of it in my prose. I need to write as much as I need to breathe, and I figure, maybe I can bring our fractious, violent world together just a little bit more by making readers look outward for a bit of fun rather than looking menacingly at each other. Besides, the resemblance between Ming the Merciless and Osama Bin Laden is all in my head, not yours. Right?
http://bennypdrinnon.blogspot.com
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Icarus
My teenage son and I have been through some rough times. One time, though, we sat down and talked about him wanting to be a music composer. I realized then that the things I have been through as a writer, being discouraged by other, more sensible people, having to defend my art, and not even being believed in by my own family, were the very things that he was talking about. So I wrote a poem about it. The central metaphor is Icarus from classical mythology. I even suggested he use it as lyrics and turn it into a song. Of course he told me how stupid that idea was. So let me put the poem here and see what you think.
Icarus
“You never once believe in me,
You only hear the lie,
You never once believe in me,
You never even try,
You never see the good in me,
You only fear I’ll die,
You never hear words I say,
You never tell me why,
You never care how well I plan,
Or why I touch the sky,
You’ll never even lift me up,
You never let me fly,”
That is how it always was,
Between my dad and I,
Until the day I reached the sun,
And burned my hands on high,
And so it is he’ll never know,
How much his son was worth,
Because he couldn’t understand,
The day
I fell
To Earth.
http://www.bits-quark.org
March 27, 2013 · 6:32 pm
Ugly Flowers (a short short science fiction story)
Mai Ling was swiftly learning the ninja skills that Master Aero taught the students in his dojo. Unlike the majority of the Mutant Ninja Space Babies, Mai was completely in tune with the skills of movement, attack, and defense she was learning at the dojo because her psionic mutant power was telekinesis, the ability to remotely move things with the mind. Her mental ability complemented her ninja attack skills in that she could alter the course of projectiles in flight. If she threw a ten-pointed shuriken at someone, it would not miss. The picture in her inner eye, the secret of psionic control, was always the flower-like shuriken rotating through the air at the target, even if it needed to make a ninety degree turn to hit the precise spot she aimed at.
Shu Kwai, Master Aero’s lead student, had worked with her hundreds of times, helping her to see the power to control movement of objects as part of a wondrous dance. He was also a telekinetic and could also do the dance. It was a dance that could protect others from harm, or if the need arose, destroy them.
At twelve years old, Mai was already developing into a shapely young lady.
“You can’t be ashamed of your body when you are doing the dance,” reminded Shu. “We wear hardly any clothes not because we are immodest, but because we do not wish to impede the dance in any way.”
Mai frowned at him. Shu could be such a prig at times. He stood there wearing only a white loincloth. Except for that, his light orange-yellow body was functionally nude. Boys could get away with that, especially scrawny teenage boys with practically nothing to show off anyway. Shu and Mai were both natives to the planet Gaijin where Master Aero’s dojo was located. That meant that they were descended half from the Japanese humans of Earth, and half from the nearly human Sylvani of deep space. Mai herself had bare feet, bare legs, and a bare midriff. She was not about to leave breasts exposed, or even her arms. She wore a computerized ring-sleeve on her left arm, which helped give gauss-magnetic acceleration to objects she threw. And the magnetic arm bands on her right arm gave her a magnetic shield she could shape and manipulate with telekinesis.
“I am not going out into the jungle without any clothes on,” she stated firmly to Shu. “You don’t know if these strange aliens will attack. Besides, I fight better with clothes on. I’m not a pervert like you.”
At fourteen, Shu was definitely vulnerable to insults like “pervert”. He cast his eyes downward to scan the ground and blushed furiously. It was entirely possible, Mai thought, that Shu had a secret crush on her. With the red flower in her hair, she was definitely beautiful, at least, in her opinion.
“Okay, but you better obey orders while we are on this weird planet.” Shu sniffed imperiously for added emphasis. That was okay. Mai accepted the fact that he outranked her.
Cornucopia was probably the strangest planet Mai had ever visited. Master Aero had discovered and named the planet. Little Gyro the Nebulon inventor and one of Master Aero’s favorite students had discovered that all the intelligent creatures were plants and had a special scent language unlike anything in the known galaxy. The first alien they had been able to communicate with was a strange, onion-like creature that Gyro’s computer translator named, “Luigi the Onion-Guy.” Why the plant-man had an Italian first name was a complete mystery, but there was a clue in the fact that Gyro’s computer also dubbed the language of the Cornucopians “Stink-Talk.” Nebulons were known for weird senses of humor.
“Are you sure we can’t take any weapons?” Mai asked. Luigi the Onion-Guy had pleaded with Master Aero to come to Cornucopia to help battle evil fascist creatures that he called “Throckpods.” Actually it was Gyro’s translator that called them that, but that was quibbling with the facts.
“Master Aero doesn’t want us to anger or frighten any of the flower-people of this planet.”
“Flower people? They look like walking thistles and weeds to me.”
“Still, Master Aero only wants us to locate a Throckpod and convince him to come back with us so our group can study it.”
“So it’s a spy mission.”
“Intelligence gathering.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s very different.”
The jungle was different than any other jungle Mai had ever been in. Instead of trees and vines and shrubs, it was made up of salt pillars, living crystals, and mold. Mai’s ring sleeve indicated that large parts of it were toxic and deadly. The two young ninjas proceeded cautiously.
Each time they encountered a carrot-guy or a potato-guy or a corn-stalk-guy, they were told to take a different trail through the toxic jungle. Fortunately, Mai’s ring sleeve was programmed not only to interpret the plant people’s Stink-Talk, but could make a map of their progress as well. Otherwise, Mai and Shu would be hopelessly lost.
Finally, a radish-guy with a puffy red and purple face pointed to a large stand of weeds.
“In that spot you will pinpoint a Throckpod.” The ring sleeve translated the smells and spoke the message aloud in a voice that sounded like Mickey Mouse. Darn that Gyro!
Shu looked at Mai and nodded. They walked over to the stand of weeds.
“One of you is a Throckpod?” asked Shu. The translator device made the word “Throckpod” smell suspiciously skunk-like.
“Who is asking?” said one of the flower-headed weeds. “You appear to be skoog monkeys.”
Skoog monkey was an insult on most planets, at least, when used to describe a humanoid. They were vicious little primates from the planet Misko Skoogalia. Human beings were much more like the little poop-throwers than any human was comfortable admitting.
“We are students of Master Ged Aero,” said Shu. “We think you may have heard of him, because other Cornucopians came to our world to seek him out.”
“We have heard of your head monkey, yes. But we do not recognize his authority.”
“All we want is for a Throckpod to come and meet with him. We wish to learn more about your planet.”
Everything went silent and smell free. Mai wondered if they knew that the translator device in her ring sleeve would pick up and translate any smells they used to talk about the situation. Maybe, however, they used telepathy or something. Mai wished Sarah the telepath was with her at that moment.
One exceptionally large weed came over to Mai and bent down over her head. Mai realized that it was examining her red flower with little seed-like eyes.
“You have killed a seedling!” said the possible Throckpod. “You must be killed in return.”
Mai’s heart leaped. Shu was obviously surprised too. They had no weapons, but both of them could pick up and throw rocks, pebbles, and crystal shards with only a thought. Mai could propel one like a bullet with her ring sleeve.
The rest of the weeds gathered around them too.
“It’s a flower from my own world,” said Mai, lamely. How could she make these plant people understand that, not only was the flower not intelligent like them, it was an artificial hair decoration and made from silk?
“A flower is a flower,” said the Throckpod, “and a monkey is a monkey.”
“Pick up a score of pebbles and rocks, Mai,” said Shu. “It’s time we gave them the old lawnmower treatment!”
“Lawnmower?” asked the Throckpod.
“A machine for cutting grass,” said Shu. “It cuts plants down close to the roots.”
If a weed could turn pale, then these Throckpods were suddenly gray. They knew about human technology apparently, and were completely unsure of what Mai and Shu were capable of. It was at that very moment that Mai had a bright idea.
“Why do you assume the flower is dead?” asked Mai, looking into the seed-eyes of the weed standing over her.
“Because it doesn’t move.”
Mai smiled. She used her telekinetic ability to make the petals of the silk flower move. In fact, she made the delicate little thing do a spinning dance just above her brow. “This flower is alive and it is my good friend and companion.”
“Have it say so,” the Throckpod replied menacingly.
“It is a tiny flower,” said Mai, thinking quickly, “and tiny flowers on my planet have not learned to speak. Can you not see that it is alive?”
“Accept her word, brother,” said one of the other weeds. “We don’t want to risk this lawnmowing thing.”
The plant-man relented. “Very well. I will go with you to see this master monkey of yours. You will remember that Throckpods are the natural rulers of this planet, and we are to be treated as king-things.”
“King-things?” asked Mai.
“Royalty,” suggested Shu.
“Oh,” said Mai. It was Gyro’s crazy translator program again.
So, finally, Mai’s Cornucopia adventure was ending as she trudged back to the Mutant Ninja Space Baby camp. She had found and mastered a walking weed known as a Throckpod, and she left with the melancholy realization that it would be nice to have a talking flower to put in her hair, but that wish could never come true.
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Sense and Nonsense
So, here’s the situation, testing has once again laid waste to lesson plans. Because of an important State Test that determines how well high schoolers read English, I have to spend more time in the test administration room than I was originally scheduled to do. My mind is elsewhere. My own personal son is home ill with the bubonic plague again for like the fourteenth time this school year, so I not only have to worry about whether he has passed away or not before I can make a doctor’s appointment, I have to worry that my congested nose and throat are the same plague taking hold in my buboes. I have not had the time I planned on for lesson planning as I am walking in the door for the start of second period.
“Mr. B, what are we gonna do today?” asked Girly-Go-Getter who always has to have challenging work in front of her, or her parents will be knocking on the school door with subpoenas in hand for a little friendly lawsuit.
I shrug. No time to prepare, right? Am I supposed to teach out of my head or something?
“Let’s watch a movie,” says Slow-Poke Rodriguez, a cartoon Mexican mouse who is so politically incorrect he probably does have a gun in his backpack.
“A movie?” says I, “You want to watch a G-rated probably-a-cartoon movie not from Disney (because they sue teachers for using their property without licensing agreements) because you haven’t seen any movies in class at all this week during testing?”
“We watched movies in all our other classes,” says Bad-Donkey Jones who is bipolar and mildly schizophrenic. (He has a special form from the counseling office that forbids me from punishing him or even talking mean to him in any way, which I would never do because I am old and he can probably kill me with one hand anyway).
“No movies,” I said. “Teachable moments only.”
“Aw, gawd!” say several students at once.
“Praying to me won’t help,” I answer, only partly in jest, “I am not God. If I were, there’d be lightning.”
“So what will we do?” asked Girly.
“Let’s talk about thinking skills again.”
“Aw, that’s soooo boring!” croon several.
“How does that help us pass our tests?” whine the rest.
“It may never help you pass a test,” I admitted humbly. “But it is a key to success in life.”
“How?” says Slow-Poke, assuming that if he keeps asking questions, I will wear down and show him the movie Shrek again.
“Okay, let’s take the thinking skill of questioning.” General groans in response, especially from Rodriguez who realizes that the selected strategy is his fault.
“You can’t use questioning on the State test!” says Girly.
Actually, you can, but I look around at the mostly vacant stares and nodding heads with earphones in both ears. Oh, yeah, there is at least one that only has one ear plugged, and he will contradict me if I tell them all they are not actually listening, that he can listen to two things at once. I don’t really feel like giving any more praise to the lovely State test anyway.
“Maybe you can’t use questioning as a thinking skill on the State test,” I craftily admit, “But the State test we all love and honor so much is mostly about spitting out facts and figures and spotting spotty spelling.” Some of the actual listeners chuckle when they notice the rhymie little alliteration I slipped in there. “Is that the only thing you need to know in life? Facts, figures, and spelling?”
“It sure, hmm, ain’t!” says Jones. I try real hard to make my eye twinkle to let him know how much I appreciate the way he fluffed over the spot where he could’ve used his favorite f-word.
“When you have a question in Science class, especially on lab days, what do you have to do?”
“Aw, gawd,” says Jones, “You need to make up all that stupid hypothesis sh… stuff, and find a procedure or something.”
“You mean, in Science class you have to come up with an idea to answer the question and then test that answer?”
“Yeah,” says Slow-Poke, “You gotta do stuff just like that.”
“So you need to answer questions by asking more questions?”
“Questions like what?” says Jones.
“Hey, that’s a good one right there,” I say. Fortunately, when they all laugh at that, Jones doesn’t think they are laughing at him. “You have to ask questions like; what questions do I need to ask to find each possible answer, and what experiment could I do to tell me one way or another how good my possible answers are?”
“Yeah,” says Jones, “Learning to ask questions is about all we do in Science Class.”
“That’s what Mr. P, the Physics teacher says Science is always about,” declares Girly, “finding the right questions to ask.”
“Well, good,” I say, exhausted beyond belief. “I have now taught Mr. P’s lesson for him.”
Everyone laughs again.
I look at the clock. Fifty gazillion hours to go before the dang bell! How do you fill it?”
“Okay,” I say to Slow-Poke, “so you want to watch Shrek one more time?”
That, of course, is the entire essence of being a public school teacher.
.
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6 Little Incurable Diseases
I know you may find this hard to swallow, but I live on a day-to-day basis with six incurable diseases, and I am a cancer survivor. From worst to least I have; diabetes, hypertension, COPD (emphysema), arthritis, psoriasis, and a prostate gland the size of a grapefruit. I survived malignant melanoma in 1983 with no recurrences in the thirty years since. The doctor had to cut a hole clear through my cheek and sew the hole shut with twelve stitches. When I tell classes about my spotty medical history I always remind them that every day of life left to us is a gift. No, change that, I tell myself.
Diabetes is the worst of my diseases because it makes me feel bad daily. Everybody who has diabetes can tell you that no two people have the same diabetes. It treats everyone a little different. Mine will take my blood sugar briefly to the high side and then plunge dangerously low. The lowest reading I have ever gotten on the blood sugar meter is 35, which doctors say can’t be right, that monitors don’t read accurately at extremely low levels. So I guess it may have actually been lower than that. When it is low, my head feels like a beehive full of angry bees. I am desperately hungry at that time and must eat, but I must eat the right thing and in the right amount. If I do get at least eight grams and protein and twenty grams of carbohydrates, I am in for an hour’s worth of pounding headaches as the blood sugar levels even out again.
Psoriasis is one of my least life-threatening incurable diseases, but it is by far the most annoying. Dry patches of skin turn into itchy, bloody nightmare sores of purple and green. Infected, one of them could easily cost me an arm or a leg. The disease keeps me awake at night, and when I do sleep, I am liable to make more sores by scratching without realizing. You have to learn degrees of self control that I would never have believed possible fifty years ago as a kid.
I know this post has not been exactly hilarious so far, but I think it is meaningful never-the-less. The silly and somewhat stupid statement that I intend to stupidly make about it is, “I never could have been so alive for the past few years if it were not for my six incurable diseases.” Stupid statement, I know, but it is true. I have never learned a more important lesson than the one I learned in multiple emergency room visits. Staying alive is a privilege that must be worked at, must be earned. There is deep within all of us a willpower, a force that drives us to be alive that can be dug down to and ignited in times of crisis. If I had never been ill, I might never have learned that.
I have also learned that you must admit that you do not stand alone, and, at times, you must rely on other people to pick you up and even carry you when the need is evident. I am not too proud to say that if I hadn’t been able to rely on friends, family, and even good-hearted strangers, I might not still be here. It is humbling, but it is good to feel the connections we all have with the people around us.
So, what can I say to make the grim seem acceptable? I know full well I may not be here come tomorrow morning. I value every second of being alive. I will continue to take my four medications every day for the rest of my life. I will continue to count proteins and carbs and juggle them properly. I will continue to do everything the doctor says that I can possibly afford to do. And why will I do it? Because I must not waste a single moment of God’s gift, no matter how much it may hurt, itch, or ache.
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Catch a Falling Star 